How did Polan get their shit pushed in by Germany so fast in such a short period...

How did Polan get their shit pushed in by Germany so fast in such a short period? It's not like they were some tiny third world country. They were a large European country with a big army And modern armament. Everyone thought the German-Polish war would be a long border war resulting in a stalemate or minor German border territorial acquisitions. But Germany overran pretty much all of Poland and mopped the floor with them by the time the Russians stepped in.

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_cavalry#Cavalry_charges_and_propaganda
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Their strategy was fundamentally flawed, and was too based on holding onto border territory with every scrap of effort rather than thinking that the army was the cornerstone that holds together everything else, and must be preserved even if it means yielding turf.

So when the Germans started to break through places at the Battle of the Borders, instead of being able to elastically fall back and continue resistance, entire Armies got pocketed and annihilated, which damned them in pretty short order. Of course, some of this probably would have happened even with proper strategy; the Germans managed much higher levels of operational mobility, even with their horse drawn logistics, than the Polish could manage, but the setup, which you can see in your pic, of high concentrations of force in relatively open areas that the borders form a natural salient and then trying to hold onto that was a suicide move.

They also had massive air inferiority, and by 1939, that was really starting to mean something in a way that hadn't been as true in earlier conflicts.

Three things.

First off the obvious bit - the Germans had a better military with a superior doctrine and greater mobility.

Second, the Poles weren't fully mobilised. They started mobilising in late August but the French and British made them stop in order to not provoke Germany. In the end the mobilisation only re-started on August 31, hours before Germany attacked.

Finally, the Poles were "deliberately" following a suboptimal defence plan. The full extend of the border was basically indefensible, so the sensible thing to do would be to have deeper lines of defence, perhaps even on the Vistula.

The problem was the Poles were afraid that if they just allowed Germany to waltz in freely through one third of the country, France and Britain would consider that a complete Polish collapse and not join the war. Even worse, Germany could just occupy some areas without engaging the Poles at all then ask for some international mediation in order to keep some or all of them without a war. By the events of the Anschluss and Munich this could well have worked - another peace in our times.

So the Polish leaders decided to stage a full defence along the indefensible border to ensure France and Britain join the war, followed by an orderly retreat to more defensible positions, and then defending until the allies join in force.

The problem was the retreat was not very orderly since the Germans were far more mobile and this was the perfect scenario to exploit that advantage, achieving some very impressive encirclements against withdrawing Poles.

Also it's worth noting that in 1945 Germans lost essentially the same ground to the Soviets just as fast - in 20 days. Open flat land is hard to defend.

I've often wondered if there was anything the countries that got conquered in ww2 could have done to win against overwhelming odds. The Finns came the closest but only through a combination of favorable defensive conditions and breathtaking incompetence from the Soviets.

A country with mostly flat terrain and no natural defences apart from a river is difficult to defend.

>the French and British made them stop in order to not provoke Germany

By posting 95% of their troops within 5 miles of the border, they had no mobile reserve to react with, but even if they had, the mobility of the panzers DUE TO DOCTRINE was to great for them to react to.

Most German infantry gained little to no ground the first few days, one unit even sleeping in their barracks in Germany by night. Supply lines were very short. Without supply lines and defensive in doctrine, the Poles could only sit in place until starved into surrender. Of the other defenders against the new doctrine of blitzkrieg, only the Germans were able to manage a successful fighting retreat when Hitler was being ignored.

History often underplays the extent to which Chamberlain and Daladier literally cucked Western civilization to death

Daladier wasn't that bad. He knew what they were doing was shit, but there wasn't much he could do since by that point France could hardly go it alone

I'm currently reading "A Pictorial History of the World War II Years" and it lists several reasons why Poland got destroyed so badly:

1. The German Army was using new/modern military tactics while the Polish army was using tactics from the previous era of warfare

2. The German army had better equipment, their planes were more advanced than the Polish WWI-type planes. The German tanks were facing Polish horses. Etc.

3. The Polish High Command mistakenly focused the bulk of their forces in the 'Polish Corridor', when most of the German army was pushing from the South.

4. Poland also believed France and Britain would immediately come to their aid.

All in all, the German army was seemingly unstoppable with how fast and hard they hit Poland. It showed the effectiveness of the blitzkrieg.

In fact, even Stalin was surprised by how fast the German army was moving and was caught off-guard. He thought it would take the German army much longer to reach Warsaw and he was not ready to attack Poland yet.

>to death
>the allies ultimately won

These anons get it. Their posture set them up for failure since the beginning no matter how valorous or relatively well-equipped they were. As soon as one sector of front is pierced, the Polish command's decision to mass all their forces along the borders with no real method of shifting their largely foot-bound troops would guarantee the defeat of their armies.

The reason for their dispositions was because holding a line at the only viable natural defensive barrier in the country, the Vistula, would have meant giving up Warsaw. This is unacceptable for many reasons. So the Polish command hedged its bets on stuffing an invader at the border. Unfortunately, they drastically underestimated the speed of their (largely horse-mobile) enemy.

If you had replaced the Germans with the Japanese army that drove into China in 1937 you'd probably see much the same result.

Combine that with x3 numerical superiority in men for the Germans (the Poles had 955,000 men, but only about half of these were mobilized at the time iirc) and even greater superiority in tanks, planes, horses, and trucks. It's not that big of a surprise they got steamrolled. The real surprise that they managed to last as relatively long as they did and then wage a 5-year guerrilla war that caused hundreds of thousands of additional German casualties.

Because Poland was attacked from all sides by Germany, USSR and Slovakia.

>The German tanks were facing Polish horses
Why is this meme so virulent? There was a single skirmish (that was grossly blown out of proportion in the rise and fall of the third reich) during the first day of the invasion of Poland where a squadron of Polish cavalry charged advancing German infantry to delay them long enough for Polish infantry to retreat and avoid encirclement. The German infantry broke easier than the Poles had expected so they pursued them, but were counter attacked by machine gun fire from German armored cars and retreated with some losses. Slavomir Rawicz was involved in that skirmish and described it in his book. The polish cavalry did not blindly charge at tanks, that's just a myth.

Poland had real tanks like the 7TP which was a match for the Panzer II's, but the bulk of their tank forces (which were only 1/3 the size of Germany's to begin with) were tankettes with only a machine gun mixed in with the infantry.

>but were counter attacked by machine gun fire from German armored cars and retreated with some losses.

So, tanks were facing polish horses?

Wasn't that the battle where the Poles won?

Not tanks, armored cars but yes I suppose you're not wrong. I just wanted to correct the record because Polish cavalry charging German tanks is an often repeated story that simply didn't happen.

They lasted about the same as France. France had the British defending as well.

You mean, the French defending Perfidious Albion as he fled across channel?

If Perifidious Albion had stuck around it'd have just been a bigger disaster.

>Modern armament
They still fought with horses

(You)

Remind me which side of the channel Perfidious Albion lives on?

The Poles wanted to make a stand, they'd wanted to go in with the Czechs but the Czechs made the mistake of believing Hitler when he said he had no further territorial claims on them and paid for it with destruction. Poland fighting alone had no hope of winning, doubly when you consider she was attacked by both the Nazis and the USSR at the same time, but she fought well and bravely even if it seems like she didn't last long.

Blitzkrieg,

Wars aren't really won or lost because of technology to be honest, it's far more about strategy, politics, logistics and will to fight.

There's a difference between AFVs encountering mounted infantry and cavalry charging tanks.

Bullshit. Will to fight don't mean shit for Hadji when he's facing down Reaper drones.

Technology is very important in the war effort, smallarms less so, along with manufacturing and all the other factores you mentioned. Just because Logistics is king doesn't mean technology isn't worth a damn.

Enigma, it's cracking, Radar, Fission etc were all instrumental to how the war went the way it did.

>autistic stem screeching in the distance

The defence plans were done before Slovakia became puppets of Reich so planning of High Command was done too quickly. Defence plan itself was threeparter that, considering fact that in reality this whole campaning was failure from German side (30% of tank force destroyed, bombs runned out by 14th, ammo that left would run out in two weeks, blitzkrieg itself ended by 15th,etc), could work only if High command was not in chaos, Allies done something and Soviets didn't enter. Those parts were:
>Border Battle
>If Germans were to powerfull (i.e. in every case), retreat behain Vistula, San and Narev
>If it fails retreat on Romanian Bridgehead
But High Command was in chaos, Soviets did attacked and Allies di not done shit.
But Poland didn't stoped fightiing until 60's so Gloria VIctis or something.

Bullshit sorry. Technology gives you the edge but it doesn't win the war. Only in extreme cases like you mentioned where it's under equipped insurgents against a major world power, and even they struggle.

Whoa, what a book!
>2. The German army had better equipment, their planes were more advanced than the Polish WWI-type planes. The German tanks were facing Polish horses. Etc.
Source - nazi propaganda movies. Poland had quite good planes, but to few in number to matter. To give example, in early '30 they made first in the world plane created entirely of metal. PZL P.11. So that's all about obsolete WWI type Polish planes.
>The German tanks were facing Polish horses. Etc.
Germany also had cavalry, used as a battle force. They even on average made more horse charges that Polish (per battalion).

>Very few tanks, and what tanks were available were spread out across the country in small groups
>1939
>Still using cavalry

Whoa, what a book!
>2. The German army had better equipment, their planes were more advanced than the Polish WWI-type planes. The German tanks were facing Polish horses. Etc.
Source - nazi propaganda movies. Poland had quite good planes, but to few in number to matter. To give example, in early '30 they made first in the world plane created entirely of metal. PZL P.11. So that's all about obsolete WWI type Polish planes.
>The German tanks were facing Polish horses. Etc.
Germany also had cavalry, used as a battle force. They even on average made more horse charges than Poles (per battalion).

>1939
>Still using cavalry

You mean like the USSR, the U.S., France, Great Britain, and Germany itself?

The vistula runs through Warsaw though, so I don't see why they'd have to give up the city

Why do the French spread so much propaganda about Dunkirk? Damaging so hard is a tad embarrassing love.

So did Germany

and for all the billions spent on reaper drones who will control afghanistan after the US leaves?

inherent racial inferiority of the horses

>That fucking spear

10/10

FAKE NEWS
ALTERNATIVE FACTS

>On 1 September 2009 Sir Simon Jenkins, writing for the The Guardian newspaper's website, characterised the notion of pitting Polish cavalry against tanks as "the most romantic and idiotic act of suicide of modern war."[7] On 21 September 2009, The Guardian was forced to publish an admission that his article "repeated a myth of the second world war, fostered by Nazi propagandists, when it said that Polish lancers turned their horses to face Hitler's panzers. There is no evidence that this occurred."[7]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_cavalry#Cavalry_charges_and_propaganda

>American education

Seriously, this faggot fell for the American history teacher: lol Poland still used horses meme.

Soviets and Germans used horses.

Okay I'll give you that, tech doesn't win wars. But I'd still argue it as a key factor in the rapidness of victory or lack thereof. I was thinking of the war in the Pacific, where America's fire control, detection and damage control mechanisms gave them the key advantage over the IJN that could not be overcome.

It is true that if they did not possess far superior technology, the US would've still won, by virtue of far larger, and intact, manufacturing centres, but only at a cost of many many more lives.

The same sentiment for the Bomb and Japanese capitulation.
The technological difference is far less important in the European theatre.

more likely he's just a troll

American corporations.

Would the allies have been able to stop the war sooner if Britain and France had immediately attacked while the Germans were occupied in Poland?

Good post, good dubs

>won
>russia claims half of europe

Depends on what you mean by "immediately attacked". If they immediately attacked with what they had ready in the first week of September, 1939, then fuck no. France only had about 20 divisions ready to move, and the Germans had more than that along the border forming up. Not to mention that while the Maginot line gets all the fame, the German Siegfried line on the other side of the border was almost as well fortified, and correspondingly difficult to attack through.


If France and Britain were as strong as they appeared on paper, operationally ready to go and mobilized and organized, sure. But that involves getting ready far sooner than they did historically.

The city centre, along with government buildings and most important infrastructure, is situated on the left bank. The right bank historically has been a rather poor suburb.

the germans rode in on cardboard tanks and had outdated guns that fired paperclips it was luck that they conquered poland or anything t. slavaboo

>russia is part of the allies

Note also that though the invasion was only five weeks, Poland was not defeated in five weeks and continued to resist. The Polish plan after the initial collapse was to withdraw and fighting at the Romanian Bridgehead. Once this was rendered untenable by the Soviet invasion, their new plan was to withdraw altogether or just let the Soviets march in with little resistance because they were better than the Germans (many Polish POWs captured by the Soviets then served in the new Polish army after the Germans lost Poland to the Soviets). 140,000 Polish troops escaped via neutral Romania or the Baltics, made their way to Britain and France, and formed the core of the Polish Army in the West.

Tens of thousands of soldiers that weren't able to escape became the core of the Polish Home Army, which continued the fight. By some estimates the Axis had 150,000 fatalities (implying around half a million casualties overall) fighting the Polish resistance movement. Even assuming that's overstated by a factor of two, that's still a lot.

German tanks never fought polish horses

They were used to fight off light pockets of infantry.

>what is September 17th

Does interwar Poland look like a fish to anyone else

(both it and interwar Germany look so nice, now both countries are fucking rectangles)

>How did Polan get their shit pushed in by Germany so fast in such a short period?
Because the Germans had a modern military and the Polish did not.
Furthermore, German military strategy relied on quickly overwhelming the enemy. So it was a combination of an unprepared military and the nature of the German blitzkrieg strategy.

I don't see it. Pre-partition Commonwealth reminds me of a bird, though.

...

kek

Winged Hussars weren't there to stop them.

>Czechs made the mistake of believing Hitler when he said he had no further territorial claims
That was Britain and France, Czechs wanted a fight France and Britain said no. Then after they lost all their defenses they could literally not resist the Germans.

gain of russia was allies failure

But Panzerkampfwagen literally means armored fighting veichle:'))))

And here is the picture of a tank. You got anything else smart to say?

Racial inferiority

>They were a large European country with a big army And modern armament

the 'big' army was still about half the size of Wehrmacht, with very few modern tanks and aircraft. The French military was (on paper) roughly equal to the German, in some aspects even superior, and yet France took rougly the same time to fall (one month and 15 days vs 1 month and 5 days)

>1 cavalry brigade vs 8
no

>The German tanks were facing Polish horses

I guess now we just replace real history with German memes?

>The German Army entered World War II with 514,000 horses,[13] and over the course of the war employed, in total, 2.75 million horses and mules;[16] the average number of horses in the Army reached 1.1 million.[26]

>A German division was supposed to be logistically self-sufficient, providing its own men, horses and equipment to haul its own supplies from an Army level railhead.[41] Soviet divisions, on the contrary, relied on the Army level transports. The supply train of a 1943 German infantry division employed 256 trucks and 2,652 horses attended by 4,047 men,[41] while other divisional configurations had up to 6,300 horses.[26] The supply train of a lean 1943 Soviet infantry division, in comparison, had only 91 trucks and 556 horses attended by 879 men

>horses for logistics are the same thing as horses for combat

what do you mean no, the german army used the 1st cavalry brigade under command of Kurt Feldt which was part of the 3rd army

>it doesn't count because I don't like it

youtube.com/watch?v=K_DnRn9hyFU

Eastern Europe destroyed, Soviet domination, British empire fell apart...

The same way the conquered france... but with more strategic bombing